The Dangerous Animals Club

By Stephen Tobolowsky

From legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky, comes a collection of memoiristic pieces about life, love, acting, and adventure, told with a beguiling voice and an uncommon talent for storytelling.

The Dangerous Animals Club by Stephen Tobolowsky is a series of stories that form a non-linear autobiography. Each story stands on its own, and yet there are larger interconnecting narratives that weave together from the book's beginning to end. The stories have heroics and embarrassments, riotous humor and pathos, characters that range from Bubbles the Pigmy Hippo to Stephen's unforgettable mother, and scenes that include coke-fueled parties, Hollywood sets, French trains, and hospital rooms.

Told in a vivid, honest, and wondrous voice, Tobolowsky manages to render the majestic out of the seemingly mundane, profundity from the patently absurd, and grace from tragedy. This book marks the debut of a massively talented storyteller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Sep 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781451633177

Stephen Tobolowsky

Stephen Tobolowsky has appeared in more than 100 movies and 200 television shows, including unforgettable roles in Mississippi Burning, Groundhog Day, and Memento. He is the author of The Dangerous Animals Club and My Adventures with God. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and sons.

Book preview

1.

THE DANGEROUS ANIMALS CLUB

DON’T ASK ME, How are the kids? I never have any idea. I know they eat and get dressed and go to school, but as to what is going on in their lives and in their heads, forget it. It is the secret world: the world that every child has and that no parent gets to see.

Ann and I are active parents. We try to meet all of our kids’ friends and their parents and ask questions and look under the bed, and check in the closets, tap their phones—but we still don’t know the various deals with Satan they may make when they leave the house. We’re not unique. Every parent is in the dark.

When I was five, I had an invisible monster that lived alternately in my closet and under my bed in a kind of winter-home/summer-home arrangement. His name was Eye the Monster. Eye would come out of hiding when I was alone and we would talk.

I had an up-and-down relationship with Eye. I often appreciated his middle-of-the-night visits. We would talk about school and about girls I had crushes on. You would think that Eye the Monster didn’t care about the opposite sex. But he did. He always argued for patience and honesty. He urged me to be more aggressive with the ladies on square dance day. It was hard advice to take. I was never a player. I thought five years of age was too young to be married. But not Eye. He thought I could be a trailblazer and be married and have children before I was in fourth grade. And this was years before MTV.

Besides being a confidant and an advisor, Eye had another side. He could be angry. There was a period when his opening my closet door and coming into my room at midnight terrified me. I snuck a steak knife from the kitchen and kept it under my pillow as a last line of defense. I hid the knife in the morning so Mom would never see it when she made my bed. Love, terror, and steak knives were all part of my secret world.

Eventually, my parents became aware of Eye the Monster. On a car trip to San Antonio, Eye came out from under the backseat. He told my dad, who was driving, that we had to go back home. Davy Crockett was at the Alamo, and we could get killed by Mexicans. Dad didn’t listen. I started crying. Eye the Monster started screaming at Dad.

Dad was not pleased. He had to work hard to get a few days off to go on a family vacation. Being a pediatrician, he realized that what he wanted was a vacation from screaming, crying kids. By the time we got to Waxahachie, Dad turned the car around and we came home.

The big secret my parents never knew was that I was also a member of a club across the alley at Billy Hart’s house. I would kiss Mom on the cheek and go out to play. In reality I ran down to Billy’s for a meeting of the Dangerous Animals Club.

Billy already had a clubhouse in his backyard so it was only natural that he should be the president. He was also older than I was. He was almost seven, and I was content to put myself in his capable hands.

The purpose of the Dangerous Animals Club was straightforward. Both Billy and I were big fans of dangerous creatures. We made a list of all the dangerous creatures we wanted to catch. Being in Texas, there were a lot of them. The list included: rattlesnakes, copperheads, water moccasins, black widows, scorpions, tarantulas, centipedes, leeches, and the deadly coral snake, which we were hoping lived in the woods nearby.

We went out into the fields and hills and creeks carrying jelly jars and burlap sacks. We used broken broomsticks and umbrellas as tools of capture or weapons, if necessary. We would lift rocks and roll over rotten trees, hoping to find something horrible, catching it alive and bringing it back to the clubhouse, effectively making Billy’s backyard the most dangerous place in Texas.

Charlie Harp, another neighborhood boy, a little younger than I, became aware of the Dangerous Animals Club. He heard our mission statement; he saw the clubhouse. He wanted in. Billy and I refused at first. What good is a secret club if everybody is a member? Charlie ran home and came back with a brown paper bag. Inside was a genuine rattlesnake skull. He said we could display it in the clubhouse if he could be a member. He was in. And we were now three.

So I kissed Mom good-bye and told her I was going out to play. I ran over to Billy’s where we met and swore that if we told anyone about the club, we would be put to death. We had a disagreement as to whether it should be a blood pact. Charlie Harp argued it had to be a blood pact if punishment for telling was death. There was a logic to that, but I was opposed to any kind of bleeding that happened on purpose. Billy, being a natural leader, said the blood oath wasn’t necessary. The activities of the Club were already dangerous enough.

We agreed and went out for our first task: to find a scorpion or a centipede. Billy was sure that if we went down to the creek we would find a scorpion. He heard that they liked rotting wood. There were several dead trees lying on the ground.

As I think about it, Billy was a damn good president. His instincts were right on. We went down to the creek and found a fallen tree. We moved a decaying branch with our bare hands—and wha-la, there was a scorpion!

We slapped a jelly jar over it. The scorpion started slashing at the glass and our hands with its tail, as scorpions are wont to do. We righted the jar and filled it with rubbing alcohol. The scorpion started swimming furiously. We screwed on the top and we headed back to the clubhouse. One day, about thirty minutes of time invested, and something nasty in our possession. Priceless.

I ran home for dinner. Mom asked me if I had fun playing with Billy. I said emphatically, Yes!

The next day we headed down to the creek where Billy hoped we could catch some leeches, and if we were lucky, a water moccasin, one of Texas’s four poisonous snake species. Billy told me that water moccasins weren’t as deadly as coral snakes—which was disappointing—but they were more aggressive. That encouraged me. I didn’t want to be wasting my time with something that wasn’t potentially lethal.

We started wading through the creek water. Leeches swam up and tried to attach themselves to our legs. How great was that! We just scooped them up in a jar and we had leeches. Another creature to check off our list. Too easy.

Now we were on to the snakes. Water moccasins apparently love stagnant water—so we were in the right place. The water had a thick green foam on top of it and you could see the mosquito larvae swimming under the murky surface. Billy suggested we start turning over rocks by the bank of the creek.

I flipped over a big piece of limestone and there was a baby water moccasin. It opened its little mouth and showed its baby fangs. Billy reminded me that the babies are just as poisonous as the grown-ups. I nodded and reached down to get it. Billy yelled to me to remember to grab it behind the head. Not to worry. I knew that. Everyone in Texas knows you grab a poisonous snake behind the head.

But the water moccasin didn’t want to be caught and it took off through a field of tall grass. I ran after it shouting to Billy that it was headed toward him. I could see the snake making a rippling trail in front of me. It seemed to stop for a second. There was movement near my feet. I reached down quickly and pulled up—the mother water moccasin! She was four feet long and angry. In all of my haste, I hadn’t grabbed her behind the head but around the fat middle of her body. She hissed and readied an attack, showing her trademark white mouth and huge fangs.

I screamed and started swinging the snake over my head. I used the centrifugal force to keep her from bending back and biting me. I was now holding her by the tail, swinging her around my head and walking around wondering what to do. Billy came up to me to give me advice. He assured me that as long as I could spin the snake fast enough, the g-force would keep her from striking. I told him I was getting tired. I needed to throw the snake. He told me I couldn’t. He said the water moccasin was not only aggressive, but it had a good memory and would follow me home.

I started to cry.

I told Billy that I had to let it fly, to let him get a head start for the clubhouse. Billy started running. I screamed after him, If I throw the snake and run, will she be able to follow me? Billy stopped and shouted back, She’ll track you by scent. It could take days, but she’ll find you. He took off like a jackrabbit. I stood in the middle of the swamp grass, swinging the snake over my head and crying.

I couldn’t do this forever. I decided that the snake was probably dizzy and disoriented. That would buy me some time. I slung the snake. She twirled, helicopterlike, several yards through the air and landed in the creek. I took off. I ran as fast as I had ever run in my life. To confuse the snake, I didn’t run directly home, but took a circuitous route in the opposite direction. I ran over to Driftwood Street and down the alley behind Mark Henley’s house. There was a terrifying German shepherd that always barked at us when we rode our bicycles. I figured if the snake tried to track me, she would have to deal with the dog first.

I got home in full gallop. I blasted through the kitchen door. Mom was putting supper on the table. She asked if I had a good time playing with Billy. I said yeah as she spooned some lima beans onto my plate. I asked her if we lock the doors at night. Mom looked at me with a touch of surprise and answered, Yes, honey. Always. Why? I started eating and said, Oh, just wanted to make sure no one could break in. Mom rubbed my back. Oh, don’t worry. I always lock the doors. I smiled. I was as safe as I possibly could be in an unsafe world.

BILLY HART AND I had a cooling off period of about three days, waiting for some sign that the mother cottonmouth hadn’t tracked me down. When she never showed up, we figured the DAC could begin its full-scale operations once again. Billy produced a huge Whitman pickle jar from the Wynnewood Movie Theater, our local Saturday matinee hangout. He had a sly grin on his face. Know what we’re gonna do with this jar?

No, I said.

We’re going to catch us a tarantula.

This was the best news I had heard since I found out the tooth fairy paid more money for bigger teeth. A real tarantula. The clubhouse would be a showplace with a tarantula next to the leeches, next to the scorpion, next to a real rattlesnake skull.

When do we get the tarantula?

Billy thought for a moment. We have to get some supplies. My brother has to go to the drugstore and buy denatured alcohol.

What is that?

Billy again showed his expertise. It’s deadly poisonous. They only sell it to adults. My brother will buy some and give it to us. Then we go out and find a tarantula hole. And then we find its escape hole and put the pickle jar over it. Then we pour the denatured alcohol down the main hole and when the tarantula tries to escape out the back, we got him.

Let me just say right now, Billy Hart was a genius. He was right about everything, except for maybe the bit about the mother snake following me home. Anyway, Billy’s brother bought the awful stuff and gave it to us, and we wandered into the hills behind our homes.

For the uninitiated, the way you find a tarantula hole is to find an arid locale (most of Texas), then you look for a hole in the ground that looks kind of like a gopher hole but with some telltale webbing around the entrance. Once you find the main hole, you walk in small but ever-widening concentric circles until you find another hole with a slight trace of spiderweb around the outside. This is the escape hole. It’s usually about twenty to thirty feet away.

Billy and I found a hole that looked suspicious. It was three inches in diameter with some cobweb blowing in the breeze. We walked around the hole, and sure enough, about twenty feet away on the other side of a scrub oak was a second hole. I put the Whitman pickle jar over the escape hole. Billy pulled out the denatured alcohol. He handed me a thick piece of cardboard for phase two of the operation.

He said, We don’t know if the hole is deserted or not. I’ll pour this in and if a spider jumps in the jar, you slide the cardboard under it and we’ll have us a tarantula. We laughed. We would have done a high five if it had existed back then. Billy unscrewed the cap, turned his head, and held the can as far away from him as possible so as not to be poisoned by the fumes. He poured the entire contents down the main hole. He threw the can away and then ran to join me behind a boulder, where I was stationed, watching for any action in the pickle jar.

We waited an eternity, which was probably more like ninety seconds, when—plop—a huge, brown tarantula popped into the jar. We screamed with glee. We had a giant, reddish brown, hairy spider with a leg span of about eight inches in the pickle jar. Billy nudged me to slide the cardboard under the mouth of the jar. I ran up and reached down to slide the cardboard in place when plop. Another large spider popped into the jar. And then plop, another, and plop, another. I ran back to join Billy.

Another plopped into the jar and then plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. A half dozen more. The jar was about half full with angry, squirming spiders. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. It didn’t stop. They kept filling the jar. There had to be fifty tarantulas in there. The entire pickle jar was filled and more spiders kept jumping into it from the escape hole.

Billy and I started to panic. Now what are we going to do? I asked him. Billy thought about it and said, We can’t take the jar back to the clubhouse and we can’t leave them in the jar. That would be cruel. Billy thought about it some more. After due consideration, he said, We have to knock the jar over and run.

Remembering my recent run-in with the snake, I asked, Will they follow us?

Billy shook his head, No. Spiders are stupid. But we have to make sure we never come back to this part of the woods again. We poisoned that hole so there’ll be tarantulas everywhere. We knocked over the pickle jar. Once again we bolted.

I got home and Mom was in the kitchen. You’re back early, she said.

I walked over and grabbed a chocolate-chip cookie she had just pulled from the oven.

You and Billy have a good time?

I grunted with a mouthful of cookie, It was okay, and went into the den to watch TV.

The next day Billy and I met at the clubhouse to discuss future missions. We didn’t have a lot to show for our trouble. Things got worse when Charlie Harp, who had never joined us on any excursions, came over and said he had to take the rattlesnake skull back home. It was a major setback for the club.

The real blow came when Billy decided we had to mount and display the scorpion, which was currently floating near the bottom of the jelly jar we caught him in. I took the top off, reached in, pulled the scorpion out, and placed it on the table when it flashed its tail at us. It was still alive! It ran off the table and into the clubhouse. Billy and I screamed and ran into the yard. Miraculously, the scorpion had lived for days in an environment of pure alcohol, much like I did in the 1980s.

With the scorpion on the loose, we had to abandon our clubhouse. Billy pointed out that since the clubhouse was made of rotten wood, which scorpions love, it would never leave. We didn’t dare go back inside.

There was something poetic about the scorpion taking over the Dangerous Animals Club clubhouse. If there were such a thing as a scorpion poet, he may have sung of the Beowulflike heroism of one of their own who survived so many trials for such a rich reward.

We never talked about it, but these were dark days for the DAC. Billy and I still played together, but it was hard to continue without a clubhouse, a rattlesnake skull, and all of nature turned against us.

There was one brief moment when the DAC thought of staging a comeback. One afternoon a large, beautiful box turtle was sitting on my patio. Just sitting there! As if dropped from the heavens. I ran over to get Billy to show him my find. I asked him if we could include the turtle as a trophy for the Dangerous Animals Club. Billy pondered and furrowed his brow. It was doubtful, he said. The turtle could hardly be considered dangerous. It just sat there. But it could be a part of a new wildlife club: the Wildlife Club of Texas. The purpose of the club would be the same as the DAC, but its reach would be more ecumenical.

I called Mom outside to see the turtle. She was impressed. I asked her if we could keep it. Mom looked unenthusiastic, but agreed to take me to the pet store to buy it a proper home.

I described the size of the turtle to the man at the pet store. I should mention that in those days, the late 1950s, pet stores were not staffed with the young enthusiastic animal lovers that work at pet stores today. The people who ran pet stores back then were just one cut above carnival people, the scariest people on earth.

Our pet store man, who had no bottom teeth, said we would need a tub for the turtle. We would need bags of gravel for the bottom of the tub. He sold us two large bags of colored pebbles. He said the turtle might appreciate a couple of the plastic palm trees he sold as turtle tank decorations. Most importantly, we would need snails.

Snails? Mom asked.

Yes, ma’am. They eat the feces and keep the tub clean. You don’t want to be cleaning that tub yourself.

Mom made a face and looked at me. She bought two snails. We headed home with the tub and the gravel, two palm trees, and two snails. The ride was joyous as we tried out different names for the turtle. They ranged from the dignified like Sam or Tom to the ironic like Speedy or Lightning.

We got out of the car brimming with enthusiasm. I ran onto the patio. The turtle was gone. Never to be seen again. Mom and I unpacked the tub and the gravel and palm trees. We filled it with water. And that’s how we ended up with two pet snails.

The Dangerous Animals Club had officially slipped into the realm of memory. Fade-out.

Fade-in, some forty years later. I was married, just as Eye the Monster had urged me to do. Annie and I, and my two boys, Robert, age twelve, and William, age seven, took off on an adventure one summer to live in a three-hundred-year-old farmhouse in the little Alps of southern France. It was late afternoon in this wild place of mountains and forests and dirt roads and ruins that date back to Roman times. I was sitting at our kitchen table drinking a glass of wine when my seven-year-old son, William, came running into the house. Daddy, Daddy, come quick. I just saw a giant lizard on the hillside. We could catch him and take him back to America if you come quick.

I was up in a flash. I found myself laughing in a most peculiar way as I ran out the door, grabbing an umbrella to use as a tool of capture or, if necessary, a weapon. I ran with William into the mountains at dusk, honored to be invited into his secret world and proud that yet another member of the Dangerous Animals Club had stepped forward to do the job so few are willing to do.

I WAS NOT up for much when we arrived in France. I fell into a near-terminal case of jet lag. I would sleep on the couch. I would sleep on the floor. I slept while Ann explained to me how I had to force myself to stay awake to stop the sleep cycle. I had become Snow White in the story of my life, but even the kiss from my beloved couldn’t help.

One afternoon while I was sleeping on the kitchen table, William came running inside to tell me to come quick—he had learned to talk to the bats.

I muttered, Talk to the bats?

William said, Sure, Dad, they’re everywhere. Now that I know their language, I can make them our friends.

Parents know that occasionally children will utter a sentence in which every word can make you question the fabric of sanity. But I believe that it is in these moments when you get a peek at the secret world your children have had all along. I had no idea we had bats at our house in the country, let alone that they were everywhere. I had no idea William was working on breaking the language barrier. I had no idea what being friends with a bat would entail, and if it was a road I was willing to travel.

I got up and followed William outside the farmhouse. He ran about ten yards away from me and started squeaking. It was loud. It could be heard for miles. If there were any glass nearby, it would have broken. Overhead I saw a dark circle forming. I couldn’t believe it. It was clear that my son was doing something that engaged the bats on a critter level. He continued the call. Occasionally a bat swooped out of the sky and landed on his shoulder. My reaction was a strange mix of pride and nausea. He was a genius. Kind of like the young Mozart, except instead of playing the piano blindfolded, he was a vermin magnet.

Like any good father, I tried to calculate ways I could monetize this ability. The only options that came to mind involved the circus or the military. I called out, William, this is great. Ann came outside. I whispered to her, Baby, can you believe this? Our son can talk to bats.

Ann was not amused. She said, Stephen, the bats could have rabies. I said, I know. I know. You’re right. You’re right. They probably all do. This should stop.

I turned to William and congratulated him on his accomplishment and asked if there was a safe way to get the bats off of his head. William said, I’ll just ask them to go away. He started turning in circles and squeaking again. As if by magic, the bats began to disperse. I promised Ann I wouldn’t encourage William in his bat-talking experiments anymore.

But you can only keep that kind of light under a bushel for so long. One afternoon I was in a deep coma, when the bat signal awakened me once more. I dragged myself out of bed and saw William down the road calling the bats at our landlord’s home. My son Robert was displaying him to our neighbors and asking for contributions. Our eighty-year-old Iraqi landlord was impressed with William’s talent. Robert came alongside of me and whispered conspiratorially, What a scam. It’s just a sound frequency. Not William.

Yeah, I said. But he’s the only one doing the frequency.

Robert rolled his eyes. Yeah. Who else would want to? He’s just weird.

I have to agree with you there, Robert. It’s a weird thing to want to do.

Robert got serious. Any way we can make some serious money off of this?

I shook my head. Already thought about it. I doubt it.

"What about America’s Funniest Home Videos?" Robert asked.

I hadn’t thought of that. That was far more practical than sending William off to the circus. Robert added, Only thing wrong is that he would probably have to get bitten for us to win.

After the bat-calling session, our landlord suggested we go down the mountain a ways. A Pakistani chess master and his eleven-year-old son were living on a farm over the summer. They might enjoy the bat calling.

William was thriving with his newfound notoriety. He had even perfected the blush of false modesty.

A big factor in any fascination is proximity. If you’re close to the object of your passion, it can blossom. Fantasy can turn into romance. That was the case with William and the black bull snake. This snake was about four to five feet long and he lived on our mountain. We would find snake skins all around our house and pool. We had little doubt that our home was ground zero in the bull-snake world.

One day I was passed out in the living room when William ran inside and asked me, Daddy, if I capture a bull snake, can we bring it home to America? I mumbled, Doubt it, before I rolled over and continued to sleep it off. Robert came in and said, Hey, Dad. The pool is filled with snakes.

I roused myself and staggered out toward the pool area. There were several snakes in the water swimming. Several sunning on the bank. It didn’t look safe. It was starting to resemble something from an Indiana Jones movie. I called our landlord to come and take a look. He drove up about five minutes later. He looked in the pool. He looked up at the mountain. He checked the angle of the sun in the sky and then felt the temperature of the water. He nodded and said, Yes. Yes. This is about right. They like to spend the summers in the pool. It gets so hot.

I understand. We like to spend the summers in the pool, too, which is why we rented your house. It would be nice to do it without the snakes. Is there someone we can call?

Our landlord laughed and said, Who would you call? There are hundreds of snakes in the mountains. They love it here. They come down and have sex in the pool. The big lizards come down here, too. You may find them mating here in the morning and evening. They won’t hurt you. They just want to have sex and eat the rats. The rats are everywhere.

I gathered my thoughts. So you are saying our backyard is the Playboy Mansion for the reptiles of Europe?

No. Just for the bull snakes. They are the only ones who go in the pool. I promise you there will never be a rat inside the house. After a while, you will get used to it. I have come to find it amusing to watch them court. The dance of love. It is beautiful.

I avoided getting misty-eyed and stayed on point. Do they bite? Our landlord looked at me like I was crazy. Only if you get in the pool with them, he said. I was feeling too sleepy to stand my ground on any sort of rent reduction. I was just able to ask, Any other snakes around here? I read you have poisonous snakes, too. Vipers.

Our landlord’s countenance grew serious. Yes. The viper is very dangerous, but they are not around here. They are short, only about a foot or eighteen inches long. You can’t miss them. They are bright yellow with a black diamond pattern down their back. They have a triangular head.

I puffed up with a certain amount of authority and said, Yes, I know. Poisonous snakes have triangular heads. When I was a little boy, I was in the Dangerous Animals Club in Texas. We tried to catch poisonous snakes alive and bring them back to our clubhouse. Our landlord looked at me and smiled. That is really crazy, he said. But if what you say is true, I would think a few bull snakes in the pool shouldn’t bother you. He headed off to his car. I think your son has a gift with those bats. He really impressed our neighbor from Pakistan.

A FEW DAYS later we headed out on a day trip to visit something else you don’t see every day. The Pont du Gard. This is the ruin of a Roman aqueduct built in the first century AD. Ancient graffiti covers the stones. Looking at all of the inscriptions you see that the power of humanity isn’t always found in great art. Over the centuries, lovers, soldiers, poets, and scoundrels have met here and left behind messages to the world: Max and Emma—Love—1806 or To God—1640 or Freedom 1783. You don’t need much more than that to understand the history of mankind.

We crossed the Gard River and started exploring the other side. Ann wanted to take in the beauty of it all. She sat down on the bank while Robert, William, and I set out to see what we could find. We got to a place where the river was narrow enough and we could throw rocks across to the other side. We started firing at will when William said casually from the log behind us, Daddy, look. A viprish.

A viprish?

Yes, a cute, little, beautiful viprish. I turned and looked back at the log where William was hunting for rocks. Coming out to check on the commotion was a short snake with a bright yellow body and a distinctive dark diamond pattern. I froze. William, walk toward me now. Walk slowly and steadily, honey, I whispered.

No, Daddy, let’s catch him and take him back.

For some unexplainable reason, it sounded like a good idea. Wait. I know how to grab him. Behind the head! I said.

Robert and William and I started chasing the terrified snake. At one point it crawled over my foot just out of my clutches. The viper disappeared in some tall grass on a low-lying hill. Robert quieted us down and said, Let me take a look. We waited in silence, afraid to breathe too loudly. Robert lifted himself to look over the crest of the hill. His face turned red. He tried to squelch his laugh as his eyes filled with tears. I said, Robert, what is it? Did you see the snake?

No. Worse. Nudies. Lots of nudies.

I lifted myself over the hill and he was right. Several heavyset nudists were sunbathing. Some had apparently never heard of sunblock. William ran up for his look and started to laugh hysterically. The nudies looked back at us in disgust. The three of us turned like madmen and ran back to Ann. We arrived breathless from the run and the laughter. She waited to hear what the commotion was all about. We began our stories. Her face changed as most women’s do when they listen to their men: from amusement to horror to incomprehensibility. We told her about the viper and our brush with death and the cluster of nudies. I lay down on the shore with the Gard River running beside me, and as I started to fall asleep, I smiled with the knowledge that the human being is still the most dangerous animal of all.

William in the wilderness on the trail of something awful.

2.

FAQ

MY IQ INCREASED dramatically in 1995. I’m not talking about my intelligence. That was cooked in 1968. I am talking about my interview quotient. Before 1995, I was rarely interviewed. I didn’t become more interesting in 1995. I just finished shooting a television show called Dweebs for CBS. It was going to be put on the fall schedule. The network arranged for all of the actors to take part in what is referred to as a satellite tour.

The satellite tour is like a lot of things in acting. It sounds far more interesting than it actually is. The actor shows up at a nondescript location. A room. Even a hallway will do. He or she sits on a metal folding chair and is sequentially interviewed by several dozen reporters from all over the world in about two hours.

The members of the press were always the same. They were affable and had no idea who I was. I was nervous. I couldn’t help but wonder what handful of questions they would ask me. Were they intent on boiling me down to my essentials like my mother with a chicken? Did they have questions honed by time and experience that would pluck out the heart of my mystery? No. Not even interested. To a man (and woman), they smiled and said, It will be painless. A few softballs. All routine. Nothing tricky. They would just hit me with some fak.

I nodded as if

Reviews for The Dangerous Animals Club

[psherman_21 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely loved it. I got the Audible version because I wanted to hear him read it, but I'm sure it would be equally good in hard copy. I hated to have it end, and will no doubt listen again in the future. Wonderful book.

[theboltchick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have often said I rarely read memoirs and autobiographies. I have often found them full of nothing by salacious gossip and narcissistic ramblings. I may have to amend my statement, since this year I have read seven memoirs so far, and have thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them. The Dangerous Animals Club is no exception. If Stephen Tobolowsky ever quits acting, he can just pick up as a writer. His writing style is relaxed and inviting. As I read, I heard his voice in my head telling me his story. He talks about growing up in Texas, about struggling to become an actor, and about balancing career and family. All is told with warmth and humor.

[ecataldi-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have never laughed out loud soo much, listening to an audiobook. Stephen Tobolowsky does an amazing job narrating his stories and you can't help but grinning at his off the wall and nearly unbelievable stories. There are roughly two dozen stories that illustrate Stephen's childhood, college years, acting gigs, professional life, and parenthood. Such a great read. I looked forward getting into the car so I could listen to Stephen joke about driving naked down the interstate to escape fleas, capturing scorpions in jelly jars, and debating about whether to pay the big man to pee on his back. A great collection and one that makes me appreciate Mr. Tobolowsky even more as an actor. What fun stories :)

[dtn620 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A memoir-ish book of stories, well written, sometimes insightful, and mostly entertaining. Basically it was a great listen during my commutes to and from work.

3-stars, which in this case is like a 5 star rating in the genre of celebrity memoirs.

[tloeffler_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A funny and sometimes poignant collection of stories from actor Stephen Tobolowsky's podcast.